


By Your Side

by AceQueenKing



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Comfort, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Fluff, Little bit of angst, Mostly the rest, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 01:36:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14683704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Max has a nightmare and can't relax. Furiosa helps calm him down.





	By Your Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loirgris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loirgris/gifts).



The dreams never pass with time. He sees it, still: the eyes of the dead, accusing.  People he's helped; people's he's refused. People he's passed, people he sees only in the darkness. All of them baying for his blood, most of all, the girl, Glory, her eyes burning with righteous indignation as she looms over him — 

Max awakens, his skin hot, as if the girl still stares at him, eyes accusing. He knows it is only his ghosts talking in the dark places he can never run, no matter how much he tries. He gets up anyway. The land is harsh enough that he can never quite convince himself to settle back into sleep without making sure the only things trailing him are his ghosts.

He shifts around, careful to shut the door to the cab of the semi-tanker quietly, then places his thumb near the safely as he walks the perimeter. There are no footprints, but Max knows, better than most, how fast those prints could fade, especially given the storm that's been doing its best to blast them off course since they left the Promised Land. The Semi-tanker ain't as big as the War Rig was, but it's not a small target.

He wishes he hadn't fallen asleep. He is never comfortable being stuck in one place and is somehow even more surprised that Furiosa let him sleep as long as he had. Even more surprising,  _she'd_  fallen asleep — she was the only woman he knew who liked to sleep less than he did.

Being outside doesn't make him feel better. The sandstorm has stripped what's left a lot of the crumbling paint on the left-hand side, the old DHA now just a half a laugh - HA - written on the left side of the old girl. His sense of uneasiness, the feeling of being caught on unfamiliar ground, sends a bolt of electricity humming between his hands and his feet. He's awake, alert. Frowning, he opens the door to the Semi, just to make sure everything's accounted for.

He's got the door almost halfway open before he hears footfalls and freezes; _one-two, one-two_ , the soft-shoe of someone used to fighting, experienced. He turns, snapping the door down as slowly as he can to mute sound; then he sees the glint of a golden arm in the moonlight, and he relaxes.

"Hey," he says. "Just - checkin' the cargo." He inhales a deep breath and trying to look casual while his partner, Furiosa, gives him a look that suggests he isn't fooling anyone.

"That dream again, I see," she says; he nods, and she doesn't ask any more questions. It's what he loves about her, more than anything; she gets him.

She sighs and hugs him, flesh and blood arm sliding over his neck. She settles into the divot in his neck like she was built for it, sighs into his shoulder. He breathes a deep breath of her, engine oil and grease still on her scent from the hours she no doubt spent bringing this roached-out rig's engines back to life from the storm, and the lightning in his bones short-circuits, a momentary retrieve.

He knows its disappointing to her that he's out here instead of if in the cab; he'd hoped leaving their Promised Land - the new, Vuvalini name for Joe's old stronghold - that the shakes might stop, that the dreams might vanish. But he'd been skeptical; after all, it isn't' the first time he's run away from his troubles only for them to find him again. But he'd hoped it would be different with her.

"It's okay," she says, rubbing his hair; he can feel her heart beat against his chest, reassuringly solid. "Takes time, Max."

"Ha," he murmurs, guilt chasing his heartbeat as he leans into the embrace. He keeps his eyes on the horizon though, careful to look for anything hiding in the dark. "We'll see," he says, because he's got a lifetime of not committing to anything and it's hard to change habits, even if he can't imagine going out on the road without her, not anymore.

"How's the cargo?" She asks, looking up at him with eyes so dark, so sweet that he wants to kiss her, and he does. She leans into the kiss, hungry, and he wants to deepen it but after a moment she pulls away.

"Cargo?" She says, softly, delicately; her voice barely a breath, a small puff of sound on his lips and nothing more. This, more than anything else, makes his nerves hum; it's the intimacy of it, the knowledge that she'll show this vulnerability around him - and no one else.

"Didn't look, yet." He taps her side and she takes a step back, peering for scavengers in the distance while he jumps in the back of the trailer. That's another plus to having a partner on these hauling trips - she's watching his back. Their cargo - the first batch of the Promised Land's precious nursery, food meant to foster good relations with the new leaders in what was Gastown and Bullet town, now Fortitude and Mother's Mark, respectively - is all intact. Not even a speck of dirt out of place. Amazing, given how much sandblasted the rig in the storm.

He hops down as Furiosa guards the rim, watching something in the distance with the scope on her rifle. He ties the truck's door up hurriedly.

"Trouble?" He asks, jumping down next to her.

"No." She glances toward him, a rare smile on her lips. "Sandstorm is retreating. Looks like it'll beat us back."

"Wonderful," he says, rolling his eyes a bit. He never likes driving when he can't see the horizon. "Engines working?"

"They are now." Furiosa gives him a furtive smile as she puts her rifle down.

"Better get goin' then," he says, glancing toward her. She doesn't look tired but he knows she can't have rested much. "I'll take the first drive."

"In a minute," she says, grabbing his hand. He lets her lead him back to the cab. She puts her rifle back in the holder on the roof, then points toward the passenger's seat.

"Get in," she says. He raises an eyebrow.

"You want to drive a double?" She just smirks and pushes him toward the cab.

"In a manner of speaking." She hisses and puts her hands on his hips, then kisses him,  _hard_. She kisses him without mercy, fearlessly exploiting his weakness toward her. His senses are full of nothing but her, struck dumb as her lips claim him, as her hands curl around his backside, possessive.

"We got time?" He asks, voice all but trembling with desire. He's hard already, and she's barely even touched him yet.

"Yeah," she says, unbuttoning his pants. "We got time."

He doesn't need more convincing than that. He scoots up on the seat, pushing down his pants as Furiosa shimmies out of hers. She throws her pants out on the chair next to him as she jumps on top of him, and he barely has time to kiss her before she guides them together.

He groans as she slides down on his cock; she's tight and wet and hot, and clearly needs the release as much as he does. He rocks his hips, slowly, as he pulls her hips down, making her take him, all of him.

Like Furiosa, he doesn't do things in half measures. They have all of one another or they have nothing. Her hands, hungry, pull on his hair.

"Harder," she whispers, and he obliges. Her hips rise and fall to meet his own, a desperate old dance they've pulled off too many times. He pulls up on her thin shirt, frees a breast. She moans as he pulls his head down to suckle her; his lips twist in victory. He knows what she likes.

And she _knows_ him. She squeezes him right, hips rising and falling at just the right tempo, her mouth planting a fiery ring of kisses everywhere she can reach.

" _Harder_ ," she moans, and he increases his pace, abandoning her breast in favor pressing his thumb into her clit, knows she needs the pressure, needs to chase the high until it catches her.

Her mouth is an open o, vulnerable, as he circles her clit, faster and faster, until all that she says are soft mewling groans and pleadings for release.

"Please, please," she begs, and he obliges, even as his own pleasure threatens to overwhelm him. He's close, but she's _closer_.

Her fingers grip his shoulders tightly as he keeps her climbing, digging into his skin as she cries out, surrounding. He rides her through the aftershocks, and she squeezes him tightly, trying to send him home, and she does; he grinds out a harsh _fuck_ under his breath as he comes, and she smiles, giving him one last kiss before grabbing her pants, the moment over. It's not quite an _I love you_ , but for them, it's the closest they'll ever get.

"I'll take the first ride," she grunts as she shimmies back into her pants. He nods, pulling his own pants up, and keeps his eyes on the horizon, watching for any potential enemies. Not everyone loves the Vuvulani takeover of their little side of the world.

But for now, the skies are clear. For now, he keeps the safety on his pistol and for now, he dares to reach out his hand to Furiosa, who takes it, driving one-handed as he holds her tight.

Maybe the dream will come back, maybe it won't. Maybe the plants will take in Mother's Mark and Fortitude and maybe they won't. The future is never clear and Max has been through enough to know things turn to shit a lot more than they don't.

But he knows, no matter what happens, there's nowhere else he would rather be, than by her side.


End file.
